Barry Ritholtz is so sharp, but when it comes to event contracts or "prediction markets" like Intrade, he seems to have blinders on. Today he takes on Intrade's failure to accurately predict the Republican Veep nominee. Yep, up until yesterday it was all Romney. Then last night Pawlenty soared. And it wasn't until Sarah Palin was all but confirmed by the news media that her "stock" started to soar. True: Intrade didn't predict anything.

But if Intrade was so "wrong" and so consistently wrong, then why isn't Barry Ritholtz an avid participant in these markets. Seriously, he should be making a downright killing, cleaning up on these know-nothing traders.

The problem is that Intrade isn't "wrong" and it's not a prediction market, a point that Eddy at CrossingWallStreet has made several times. The site (and others like it) put a price on the information that's out there. Right now, the site is basically a gambling site, but theoretically this could be useful if it were more liquid and totally legal in the US.

Intrade is what it is. But it's not what it isn't: an oracle. For that, you'd probably need to consult a crystal ball. But the notion of putitng a price on information is an important function of markets, and these sites do that just fine, especially given the limitations. Again, if they didn't, Ritholtz and others would be fools not to be crushing on them.

Russert asks what Mr. i.AM thinks of the Republican attacks that Obama is a mere celebrity, given that he himself is a celebrity. And though I'm guessing some will dismiss it, he actually has a great response "Celebrity is not a bad word". When there's a disaster, it's celebrities that frequently raise awareness and money.

Trivial? Not at all. Rallying the masses towards some end isn't an easy task. We have beacons (signalers) for a reason. Raising money is one benefit, but there are several others. So anyway, good answer.

Another dismal quarter shows that Sears Holdings' strategy is failing. The retailer's stock has fallen 36% in the past year. Rivals are eating its lunch. And it missed out on reaping potential gains from the credit and property booms. As Sears's top shareholder, activist investor Edward Lampert should fire the chairman and architect of this woeful strategy -- himself.

For some reason, the media woke up today and everyone decided to write article about MSNBC. According to a lot of reports (WSJ, Jossip, Politico) mainly citing unnamed sources (probably all the same ones grousing on the same day), all of the on-air talent is at each others' necks, and there's no adult supervision.

Probably there's some hyperventilating going on, though I have no doubt that Chris Matthews would like to sock Keith Olbermann in the head (or maybe I'm projecting, just cause I'd like to sock Keith Olbermann in the head). Beyond that, there are a lot of sharp egos and personalities on the channel now, including personal crush (kind of) Rachel Maddow.

So will it all work? Maybe. Fox News is just too obnoxious. CNN is for people who have trouble falling asleep. So MSNBC is always where I turn for politics coverage. But I think Portfolio.com's Jeff Bercovici nails it when he says MSNBC will not thrive simply as a left-wing Fox News:

Fox isn't rooted in conservative politics so much as it's rooted in
a certain sensibility: populist, patriotic, anti-elitist, loud, fast,
aggressive. The politics are a corollary of the sensibility more than
the other way around. Everything Fox does is informed by this
sensibility; it's why Fox & Friends feels so of a piece with Hannity & Colmes,
and why the network is able to vamp so comfortably during lulls in the
political news cycle with culture-war and celebrity stories.

Moreover -- and this is key -- everything on Fox is subordinate to
this sensibility. If Bill O'Reilly were to go off the reservation,
Roger Ailes would just dump him and make a new O'Reilly from scratch.

At MSNBC, it's all different. There's no top-down governing sensibility; whatever sensibility there is has emerged willy-nilly...

The whole thing is worth a read.

Sidenote: This afternoon, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was being interviewd by Tom Brokaw, and he really said that he has MSNBC.com bookmarked, and that he uses it as a key news source. Brokaw, of course, prodded him to say it, but I bet it was total rubbish.

The Karachi stock exchange's management has had a stroke of genius. (Or some sort of stroke, anyway.) Stock prices have been falling fast, so, as of today, they won't be allowed to fall any further - no sales will be permitted below yesterday's closing price.

A fish without a bicycle? Apparently a small town in New York state has no government after three of its five town boardmembers resigned. Somehow I have a hunch the people in that town will be just fine.

I'm not a big fan of that style of online journalism where you bash some mainstream media outlet for not "getting it". But man, what's with this WaPo article on how some businesses are using blogs to market themselves. You know, like they have a blog right on their site! Sometimes even the CEO dictates a post to their secretary. Seriously.

And then somehow Jason Calacanis, apropos of zilch, gets quoted in the piece. Seriously, check it out and see if you can figure out why he's in the article. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Honestly, the only way you can tell the story wasn't written in 2002 is that the story doesn't start with the line "Blog, a contraction of 'web' and 'log'..."

What is This?

The Stalwart is a blog written by Joseph Weisenthal, covering such topics as stocks, business, economics, politics, technology, gambling, chess, poker, economics, current events, music, math, Chinese food, science, randomness, kurtosis, sports, evolutionary fitness, and anything else of the author's choosing. The words contained herein are the author's own, not affiliated with any other firm or employer.